Fighting for Not-So-Religious Souls: The Role of Religious Competition in Secular Conflicts

Many countries embroiled in non-religious civil conflicts have experienced a dramatic increase in religious competition in recent years. This study examines whether increasing competition between religions affects violence in non-religious conflicts. The study focuses on Colombia, a deeply Catholic country that has suffered one of the world's longest-running internal conflicts and, in the last few decades, has witnessed an intense increase in religious competition between the Catholic Church and new non-Catholic churches. The estimation of a dynamic treatment effect model shows that establishing the first non-Catholic church in a municipality substantially increases the probability of an attack by a left-wing guerrilla group. Further analysis suggests that the increase in guerrilla attacks is associated with the expectation among guerrilla groups that their membership will decline as a consequence of more intense competition with religious groups for followers.